Long queues at HMV as WOW expansion launches

There were queues on Oxford Street again last night HMV hosted the launch of the new World of Warcraft expansion pack - and struggled to meet an unexpectedly high level of demand.

"There are probably four times more people here than we expected - we think 1500," HMV's head of games, Tim Ellis, told GamesIndustry.biz.

When asked how many copies of The Burning Crusade the store had to sell, Ellis replied, "Not enough, I don't think. Put it this way, we've got a few stores in the West End and we're opening them up now to get the rest of the stock out. We've just phoned the warehouse to get stock into stores for nine tomorrow morning. We could do a couple of thousand, to be honest."

A queue had begun to form at around 5.30 that morning, but HMV staff handed out wristbands and told fans to return in the evening. However, "We catered for a certain amount of wristbands and we just gave up on them at about 7pm," Ellis said.

With more people continuing to join the queue as midnight drew nearer, the scenes at HMV were reminiscent of console launches, as Ellis agreed. "It's bigger, to be honest," he observed.

"I think we'll be all right on stock, but it's gone OTT - it's absolutely unbelievable."

Visit GamesIndustry.biz later today for full coverage of the launch event.